Satellites have become critical to both military and commercial endeavors, making them a high priority in an adversary's target list.
The interest in space-based weapons and the proliferation of space technology to potential adversaries has caused planners to become concerned regarding the vulnerability and survivability of their satellites, especially to co-orbiting systems. Timely prediction of such a threat presents some unique challenges because such an intercept system would already be in orbit and could launch at any time. Since there might be precious few minutes for a surveillance system to observe the release of a co-orbiting anti-satellite weapon and then determine its target, pre-analysis could be used to heighten vigilance during those times of vulnerability. The targeted satellite would then stand a better chance of maneuvering away from the predicted impact area or deploying some sort of countermeasure.